Apple has been busy decorating Moscone West all week in preparation for WWDC 2013, but until now we haven’t see any iOS 7 banners.

Apple just unveiled one of the iOS 7 banners for WWDC that seems to be a pretty clear indicator that iOS 7 will have a new minimalist design. The banner simply features a huge ‘7’ against a perforated background.

We’ll keep you update with new pictures as more banners are posted up. Make sure to come back Monday morning for Cult of Mac’s liveblog of the WWDC keynote.

Source: MacStories

SwiftKey creator TouchType will be closely watching Apple’s WWDC keynote on Monday, hoping that the Cupertino company opens up its iOS platform to third-party keyboards for the first time. The SwiftKey keyboard has been exclusive to Android since its inception, but the company is itching to bring it to iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches.

I’m not going to list all the problems with Apple’s iPhotos for OS X. I’ll just say that it’s clunky, slow, the library bloats as fast as a mob informer that’s been dumped in the Hudson, Photo Stream doesn’t work reliably and – every frikkin time I switch back to the app – it flips to the “Last Import” section in the source list. So I set out to find an alternative. This article will tell you all about my final choice – called Pixa – and a little bit about the alternatives.

Following word that Apple’s iAd team is being restructured to allow for tighter integration with iOS 7’s new streaming music feature, iRadio, a new report talks just about how the ads on iRadio are going to work, how Apple’s going to make money on iRadio, and how much Apple’s paying the labels to make it happen.

In what might be Mountain Lion’s major last roar, Apple has released OS X 10.8.4, a minor update that fixes a few small bugs in Mountain Lion before the (presumed) WWDC debut of OS X 10.9.

At this point, the magic 8-ball is turning up “Yes” to the question whether or not Apple will announce their new streaming music service, iRadio, at next week’s WWDC keynote at a rate of almost 100%. A new report not only confirms the magic 8-ball’s whisperings, it says Apple is restructuring the iAds team to help support the new product. But don’t expect iRadio to launch at WWDC: you’ll have to wait until iOS 7 lands in September.

Circumstantial evidence may suggest that Apple has acquired the predictive search app Grokr. And if they haven’t done, they should do.

Grokr has been called the “Google Now for iOS.”

With Grokr’s predictive search capability and Siri’s natural language capability combined into a single feature could put Apple in the overall lead in the crucial area of virtual assistant technology.

Here’s why Apple needs to buy Grokr (and why I think they already did).

We already have a pretty good idea of what the fifth-generation iPad will look like, thanks to the many rumors and leaked parts that we’ve seen in recent months. And the latest, a purported front panel with a new design, reinforces those expectations.

While speaking today at the All Things D conference, Nuance CEO Paul Ricci confirmed that Nuance does indeed help power the voice recognition service for Siri.

Since Siri’s launch in 2011, many people assumed that Apple had formed a partnership with Nuance, but neither company has officially confirmed the relationship.

During the his interview, Ricci was asked whether it’s his company’s fault if the iPhone doesn’t understand a user’s voice. Ricci confirmed that Nuance does power the voice part of Siri, but the company is not involved in speech-recognition efforts with Google.

If history is indeed destined to repeat itself, Intel’s next-gen Haswell processors will power the 2013 gamut of Macs. Every year Apple typically puts the newest Intel silicon in its desktop and laptop models, and this year should be no exception. When Haswell desktop lineup specs leaked in December 2012, we got a peak at what will likely power the 2013 iMac.

Intel has now said that Haswell chips will offer 50% more battery life for laptops than Ivy Bridge. The main focus of designing Haswell was to lower power consumption for laptops and tablets while also doubling graphics performance. Sounds great. Maybe we’ll see something with Haswell announced at WWDC!

Source: Computerworld